The Illusion of Animation
by ThePoeticWeirdo
Summary: Henry finds Boris animating himself all by himself. Being the sane, rational person that he is, Henry is incredibly confused.
1. Chapter 1

Henry pressed the flow button and instantly heard the grinding sounds of the ink machine turning on. Well, now was the time to finally see how it looked in action and then run back to turn it off before Joey finally got here and caught him messing around and made him have to give an awkward explanation about how he had gotten so bored waiting that he had decided to temporarily stop being a sane and rational person and instead find out what would happen if he turned on the old ink machine that was probably as off-limits to anybody who was not Joey Drew as it had been thirty years ago. That wasn't a conversation that he wanted to have, so he took off towards the machine at a brisk pace to see what he wanted to see and then go right back and turn it off.

"Hey! Wait—what? Why'd it get all dark outside?"

Henry stopped in his tracks. Someone else was in the building with him and they sure didn't sound like Joey, unless his old boss had somehow increased the pitch of his voice by at least an octave. Before he could call out and ask who was there, the mystery speaker's question was answered by another squeaky voice. "I don't know, but there's ink on the floor so I can check it out. If someone else is here, I'll stop them."

That sure didn't sound good. The voice of reason started urging Henry to get out of there and, being the sane, rational person he was, he listened to it. The exit was around here somewhere, if his memory of the place was accurate. Careful to avoid the growing puddles of ink lest he leave behind a trail of footprints, he made his way down a few hallways in his search for a way out. Maybe his memory of this place wasn't so good after all. Maybe he should start backtracking and get out the way he had come in. That was probably the best idea. He turned around and quietly started his new course.

Ok, maybe it would have been better if he hadn't come back this way. Henry could only gape at the state of the room he had been in only a minute ago. Not only was the floor entirely flooded with ink, the flow button and all the walls were dripping with the black substance as well. _Turn that thing off._ He tried to splash as little as possible as he made his way across the room and pressed the button again. The flooding stopped, but everything that had been covered with ink prior to him stopping the flow was still coated in the dark liquid. Good thing most of the floor beyond this room seemed to be as well, because there was no way he'd be able to get to the other side without getting his shoes all messy. With the rest of the ground flooded as well, he wouldn't have to worry about his footprints being seen. Well, at least he was getting an idea of why Joey hadn't wanted anybody touching his machine. Still, why would he have anything like this in the first place?

Passing by the projector, Henry noticed that it was still on. His hand hovered over the off switch for a moment before deciding that it might be better to leave it be should whoever was looking for him see that he had come this way. And, of course, because he didn't really want to hear it come back to life the moment he left the room.

He didn't stop for anything else. Not for the locked doors, not for the piece of wood that had fallen from the ceiling and showed just how much this place was in need of repair, not for the poster for that one episode where Bendy had worn a tutu, not for—

"Wait, _Henry_?"

Henry did stop for that. Wheeling around, he scanned the room for who had spoken. But nobody was there. There was only the inky floor, a lone chair, his desk with some blank paper…except for the tiny, cartoon Boris that was waving excitedly in an animation that was happening by itself. On paper. Um…

"What is it?" squeaked a new voice. Before the man's eyes, a tiny angelic demon peeked out from the edge of the page, animating herself all the way. She noticed Henry, gasped, and then dashed up next to Boris to jump up and down and wave with him. "Oh my gosh oh my gosh! You're here! You're here!" the hyper cartoon squealed. "Bendy! Bendy! Bendy Bendy Bendy! You have to come over here right now you wouldn't believe who's here!" Boris gave an apologetic shrug on her behalf but continued to look excited.

Henry took off his glasses and wiped them on his shirt. He put them back on. Yep, the two cartoons were still on the page, still animating themselves. Being the sane, rational person that he was, he could not think of a logical explanation for what was happening, let alone how. He didn't have much time to ponder, however, because a splashing sound came to his attention. He turned around. Standing behind him was a terrifying ink monster. "Bendy!" squealed Alice.

Being the sane, rational person he was, Henry took off running.


	2. Chapter 2

**I forgot to include the disclaimer last chapter, so here: I do not own this game. I just created this story.**

"Um, maybe we could talk this out?" Damn it! How had he managed to get cornered like this? The monster that looked like Bendy—provided that the cheerful cartoon had grown taller, become 3D, and melted his face off with ink—advanced another step towards Henry. The man closed his eyes. Damn it! He had come to the studio expecting to have a lighthearted chat with Joey, not get murdered by an ink demon! And to think he actually used to enjoy animating Bendy and his friends!

"Come on, do you really want to do this?" he tried nervously. Apparently the answer was yes. His mind drew a blank when he tried to think of some way to talk Bendy out of killing him. All he was able to think of was a list of possible fates that might be awaiting him. Maybe he was getting dragged to some giant pool of ink to be drowned in. Maybe it was something worse.

Much to his surprise, the place he got dragged to was only the room he had been in minutes before. Alice saw him and immediately started jumping up and down and waving excitedly like she had been doing when he had first seen her. "You brought Henry back! Yay! Yaaaaay!" she squealed.

"Um, Bendy, maybe you should put Henry down now," Boris said, looking less excited and more concerned. To Henry's immense relief, the monster listened to the wolf's suggestion. "I suspect that you have a few questions," Boris continued. "We have some for you as well. But you can go first, seeing as you're probably more confused about what's going on."

Edging away from the ink monster, Henry looked from the page to the hallway. It was a wide-open escape route, so he could get out if he ran, but curiosity overrode reason and he turned back to the two cartoons. He could escape if he had to, but why give up this chance to talk to a couple of apparently sentient drawings if there didn't currently seem to be any reason to flee? "Um, ok," he started, deciding what he was going to ask first. "How are you alive?"

Boris scratched his ear. "Joey had a book that gave the exact details of how life is created from ink, but the short version is that Mr. Joey Drew built an ink machine, did some rituals, and suddenly we existed. That that might not be the best explanation, I know, but I honestly cannot say that I know of a better one."

With that, the wolf expectantly waited for the next question. "Ok, um, speaking of Joey, is he anywhere nearby? I'm kind of waiting to see him."

The response was immediate and surprising. Alice's smile turned upside down and she looked away. Boris's ears drooped. The ink monster suddenly melted into a black puddle. As soon as it lost form, a cartoony (and much less threatening) Bendy appeared next to his two friends. "He better not come back!" he squeaked angrily. "We got rid of him and he better stay gone and he better not hurt us again!"

"Joey is, um, well, he's not as nice as you remember him to be," Boris explained, a dark blush slightly fading onto his cheeks. "Discovering that they have the power to create life can really change the way a person looks at themself, and it isn't always for the better. It's a level of control that's almost godlike, so naturally it has the potential to make a person believe that they are above others. When Joey first created us, shortly after the studio got shut down, I believe, he was a kind enough person. We were almost like children to him. As time went on, though, he got worse and worse. He started accusing us of not respecting him enough, saying that we wouldn't exist without him and weren't acting as thankful as we should for that. He…" Boris grimaced, "he hurt us. Bendy especially. We didn't know what to do. We were all afraid, but we couldn't hide or get away because we can only move on this page and where there's ink."

He sighed. "Eventually, I got desperate enough to try something ridiculous. I snuck into Joey's room and wrote a letter asking for somebody to come to the studio and hopefully help us. I signed it as Joey, of course, because nobody would take anything signed by a fictional character seriously. I sent it to the first address I could find, which turned out to be yours, and it managed to get picked up by the mailman before Joey found out what I had done. When he did, though," the wolf began to get choked up, "furious is not an adequate description of him. He…strapped me to a table and just started cutting until I was dead. He'd killed us all before, many times, but never this violently. It was...absolutely horrible."

"I saw what he was doing to Boris and finally just couldn't take it all anymore," Bendy took over. "I attacked him and we were fighting and he had an axe and then the floor started collapsing. He tripped. I checked. Joey's dead and I'm happy about it." The cartoon shuffled his feet, looking more miserable than joyful as he was saying he was.

"Boris came back, though," Alice piped up, trying to brighten the mood. "We always can come back as long as this page is ok. It takes more than a few falling anvils or explosions or boulders or even operations to kill a toon. So we were all ok. And then five minutes ago we heard footsteps and we got scared so Bendy went out to check it out. But it was you! You must have gotten Boris's letter and then you came and I've never been so excited in my whole life! Except maybe the day I was created but still, you're here!"

"Well, I guess that explains the letter. Joey doing all that, though, I mean, I knew he was a little controlling, but isn't every boss?" _If I'd just kept in touch with him and not allowed him to become some sort of hermit living in a closed animation studio, things might have been different._ The wind striking against the loose boards outside made a low whistling sound, making the silence in the room all the more apparent.

After a few minutes without speaking, Alice couldn't take to anymore. "Can we ask our questions now, please?" she burst out. "I'm almost thirty years old and Bendy and Boris are even older than I am and none of us have ever been outside. Please tell us what it's like!"

He barely even knew Joey as anything more than the person who told him what the next project to work on was and who handed him a well-earned paycheck at the end of the week. Still, the least Henry could do was find out if the deceased man had any family members and if so, give them closure on what had become of the person who must have vanished from their lives years ago. He would do that when he got home. Weeping over this wasn't going to do any good, not for himself, not for Joey, not for Joey's family, not for the cartoons.

"The outside is still the outside," he sighed, trying to appear less melancholy than he felt. "Business still happens, people still worry and act happy and everything."

"Is there still animation?" Bendy asked.

"Yeah, and I hope it stays that way or else I'm out of a job." He paused to let the cartoon sigh in relief that his world was still around. "Most people style there characters' eyes to look more human, though," he added. "And oh yeah, everything is in color as well."

"What?!" Boris's jaw dropped to his feet. Recovering, he still looked amazed, as did Alice and Bendy.

"I have some copies of the projects I've finished at my house. You can come and see them if you'd like," Henry offered.

The three toons looked at each other and then at the man. "Really?" Bendy asked, eyes a little wider than usual.

"Sure, just as long as you don't splash a bunch of ink on the carpet or anything."

Bendy and Boris nodded eagerly. Alice, on the other hand, only stared out the page with an open mouth. Then the sparkle in her eyes literally doubled in size. "We get to go with Henry!" She rocketed skywards on the page and darted around screaming in pure, hyper joy. Boris, Bendy, and Henry watched her for a moment of silence before shrugging. Henry's house was sure going to be a lot livelier with them there.


	3. Chapter 3

**There is something wonderful that is called summer camp. Sorry that this is late.**

"Are we there yet?"

"Bendy, we weren't there when you asked five minutes ago. We aren't there now, either."

"But Henry, I'm bored!"

"Look, as long as we don't run into any heavy traffic, we'll be at my house in fifteen minutes."

"But that's like forever!"

"Bendy, if you want, I could play my clarinet so you can dance to the music."

"Thanks Boris."

"Um, Henry? I have a question."

"What is it, Alice?"

"Are we there yet?"

Mercifully, no traffic jams hit and fifteen minutes later the four of them pulled into Henry's driveway. "So, this is where I live," said Henry as the man turned the key and opened the door.

"It's really tidy," remarked Boris.

"Thanks," Henry smiled, sifting through some VHS tapes on a shelf. "It's a lot easier to find things when you're organized. Ah, here it is." He held up a tape case with a picture of a cartoon woman on the front. "Rose Red and the Seven Gnomes. I got to be the main animator for Rose. She's probably my greatest work. Do you guys want to see it?"

Eagerly, Alice nodded and Boris agreed as well. Bendy didn't look so sure. "Is she…a princess?"

"Yeah. Princess movies are really popular."

"Wait, they made a whole _movie_ about princesses?!" Bendy gasped. "Ewww! What happened to animation?!"

"What do you mean, 'what happened to animation?' This is the most beautiful thing I've ever seen!" Alice exclaimed. "Henry, play it! Please!"

"It really isn't as sappy as it looks," Henry assured the unhappy toon. "And we'll do something you want when the movie's over."

"Fine," Bendy grumbled.

Henry pointed out all the highlights of the film, recounting all the difficulties and the fun parts of working on Rose. Alice caught on to the melodies of the songs pretty easily and was soon singing along with the chorus. Boris was pleasantly surprised by a few of the twists. Even Bendy, despite his earlier protests, found himself rooting for Rose and her prince by the end. Finally, the credits began to roll and they all waited for Henry's name to pop up. "Well, how did you guys like it?" he asked, pressing the rewind button.

"It was awesome!" Alice squealed. "Rose was amazing and the prince was so charming and the gnomes were so funny and it was great!"

"Yes, thank you for showing us this. It was really nice," said Boris.

Bendy fiddled with his bowtie. "It wasn't bad, I guess. But can we do something else now, please?"

"Of course," said Henry. "Do you have anything in mind?"

"Yeah. Can we listen to some music?"

"Sure." Henry looked thoughtful for a moment. "I could turn on the radio and we could listen to some newer songs that I bet you haven't heard."

"Oh yeah! We have to have missed out on thirty years of music," Boris realized.

"Then let's listen!" Bendy decided. "I wanna dance to something that isn't one of the Sheep Songs for once!"


	4. Chapter 4

**I had to rewrite this several times, but finally I settled on a decision for where I want to take this story.**

Boris's ear twitched and he yawned. Stretching, he shrugged of sleep and sat up to look around. Bendy and Alice had their eyes closed and miniature Zs were drifting around above their heads. They were still in Henry's house.

"Oh! You're up!" Henry was standing in the doorway to the room, the Sunday newspaper in his hand. "Um, good morning, Boris."

"Good morning to you, too." The wolf scratched behind his ear and yawned. "Nice day, isn't it?"

"Yeah." He sighed. "Well, being that tomorrow my work week starts, it might be best if I take you back to the studio today. I mean, we don't have to leave right now, but I won't have another chance to take you back to your home until next Saturday and there isn't really anything for you three to do here if you're stuck on your page."

"Oh." Boris realized that Henry had a point. Bendy and Alice wouldn't be able to take it if they had nothing to do but stare at the living room until Henry came home each day. The studio had ink on the floor so they could move around. "If that's how it has to be, then thank you for everything."

"Five more minutes," Bendy yawned, rolling over. Woken up by the noise, he rubbed his eyes.

"Good morning," said Henry.

"Huh?" The ink demon looked around, taking a moment to remember where he was. Next to him, Alice was acting in a similar way, waving away her Zs to wake up faster. "Oh! Good morning, Henry!"

"Good morning to you as well." The man gave a wistful smile. "I was just telling Boris that I have to take you home today."

"Today? Why?" Now fully awake, Alice was fixing the man with a surprised stare.

"Today's the only day until next week that he can take up back," Boris explained. "He has work, remember?"

"Oh." She sat down and a tiny, inky tears began forming in her eyes. "We'll miss you lots."

"Dang it, Henry! Why'd you have to do this?" Bendy kicked the air in front of him. "We practically just got reunited and now you're leaving us again!"

"We don't have to go right this minute." The three toons looked up at Henry. "We have to go today, but we don't need to leave right now," Henry explained. "And just because I'm taking you back to your home doesn't mean that we'll never see each other again. I'll visit as often as I can."

That seemed to console everybody. "I guess that isn't so bad," Alice sighed. She attempted a small smile. "Hey, if we don't have to go right now, then can we have fun like we did yesterday?"

The four talked and laughed the morning away. Eventually, lunchtime came around and the conversation had to be put on pause while Henry got something to eat. After that, Boris suggested that they spend the rest of the day showing Henry around the studio. Nobody objected.

"Well, I remember most of this, but it's interesting to see it after thirty years," remarked Henry. He was holding the cartoons' page so it wouldn't get ink on it and he was following his three inky friends around. Boris, Alice, and Bendy in their 3-dimensional forms dwarfed Henry and Bendy looked as terrifying as he had the previous day, but it wasn't impossible to look past the scariness and remember that he was still the same cute cartoon that they all knew.

Boris led the tour around the studio, visiting every room except for the one with the operation table on it. They passed some writing on the wall. "Hey, who put that there, anyway?" Henry asked.

"Sammy," Alice shivered. "Sammy Lawrence. He used to be in charge of the music department."

"I remember him." Henry sighed. "Darn, did all my old coworkers end up going crazy?"

Boris shook his head. "No, Sammy and Joey were the only ones involved. Joey had the ideas and Sammy brought them to life. Joey came up with a bunch of rituals and figured out how to make cartoons real, but Sammy was the one who actually did them. They worked together just fine until," Boris glanced at his demon friend, "Sammy started having arguments over what they should do with Bendy. Sammy wanted to make him completely alive and able to go on places that weren't ink or our page, but Joey wanted to keep control over where he could go. Joey got fed up with it and tried to kill Sammy, but he escaped to somewhere else in the studio. He didn't try to attack Joey or anything, but sometimes he would sneak back to write insulting messages about how his dream was going to come true and how Joey was a liar."

"So Sammy's in this studio with us?"

Boris frowned. "Gosh, I can't believe I didn't think of that. He probably is still here."

"Um, Boris?" Alice tugged on his arm. "Do you think he'll try to attack us?"

Boris looked worried. Bendy went to the page to speak without roaring and answered for him. "We're bigger than he is. We can stop him, Alice," he said.

"Yeah, but he has pentagrams and magic and stuff," Alice argued back.

"Maybe I can convince him to leave," Henry suggested. "I mean, he wasn't really my friend, but we knew each other. Maybe he'll listen to me and leave this place and get his life back on track." He sighed. "I sure as heck won't leave you alone with him if you think he's dangerous."

"Okay. Thanks, Henry." She gave a small smile. Boris nodded and Bendy got off the page so he could walk on his own. The tour resumed.

The four of them walked by the exit. "So that's where that is," Henry realized. He stopped to look at the door that he had been searching for the day before. Well, he didn't need to make a quick escape now. "Okay," he shrugged. He turned back to his friends. And then the floor collapsed under him.


	5. Chapter 5

**There is pretty much a 100 percent chance that what happens in this story would never happen in the real game.** **Also, prepare yourself for Sammy's incredibly lame ritual.**

 **By the way, this story now has a sequel. It's called The Wonders of Animation.**

"Henry! Oh my gosh Henry are you okay?!" The three cartoons peered down through the hole and into the lower floor. Slowly, Henry got up.

"I didn't break anything, thank goodness," he called, "but I don't know how I'm going to get out of here." He thought for a moment. "If my memory of this place is still decent after all these years, then there should be some stairs at the other end of the music department. I'll try to find them."

Boris made sure the other two didn't get too close to the edge lest they fall in. "Okay," the wolf nodded before Henry walked out of his sight. Then the three cartoons were alone.

"Boris?" Alice suddenly whispered. "Um, Boris? Isn't Sammy in the music department? What if Henry runs into him?"

"Let's hope he doesn't," was all the wolf could reply.

Henry walked with the page in one hand and an axe in the other. He'd noticed it hanging on the wall and he was grateful that he had, as some of the rooms ahead were blocked off with heavy wooden boards. Smashing his way through another one, he forged on.

The next room he entered made Henry wonder for a moment whether he was inside an animation studio or a cultist's den. On the floor, someone had drawn a giant pentagram with ink. It looked ready to have some creepy ritual done on it. Feeling uneasy, Henry passed through the room as quickly as he could.

That was far from the last of the pentagrams. "Gosh, what happened to this place?" Henry muttered to himself as he looked around. Back when the studio had been open, he hadn't gone down to the music department all that much, but he had taken care to learn the basic layout of it in case he ever found himself there during an emergency and needed to get out. It seemed a lot bigger now, though. He hoped that he could find the stairs, and soon, because this place was making him a little nervous.

Inky puddles were everywhere. There wasn't any cause to give them a second look. That was, until one of them launched itself at Henry's face. Startled, he swung his axe at it and it collapsed midair. _What the heck was that?!_ Well, apparently not all living ink was friendly. He had better be on the lookout in case more—

A few swings later, his axe was covered with ink and the threats were neutralized. Breathing hard, he searched the floor for more puddles. Things looked safe for now. Still…he had better be on his guard until he got out of the place. He hoped that these ink monsters wouldn't attack Boris and Alice and Bendy.

The next few minutes were spent searching for a key, draining ink that was blocking a door, and fighting more monsters. He was glad that he would be away from them soon. Then he'd start tackling the problem of how his cartoon friends could stay in their home without getting attacked by those creatures or Sammy. He'd think of something. He had to. He had no children of his own, but he had always seen those three toons that he had worked on as kids. Even after he had stopped working for Joey and moved on to Rose and other projects, they had remained the first characters that he had worked on and held a special place in his heart. Now that he knew that they were alive, he knew that he could never let anything hurt them again.

Well, he had better get going if he wanted to make sure that they didn't run into any trouble. The stairway was close. Just a little farther and—

"Rest your head. It's time for bed."

He had time to see a figure wearing a Bendy mask lean over him before he blacked out.

* * *

It took Henry a few moments to take in everything after he opened his eyes. He was in the room next to the stairway. He was tied up. And in front of him there was a man who was covered in ink and wearing an old Bendy mask. He tried to struggle free, but the ropes held.

"You're tied up nice and tight," the man said. "We wouldn't want our sheep roaming away now, would we? No, we wouldn't."

Realizing that he couldn't break through the ropes, Henry began subtly untying the knot. The man looked at him quizzically. Henry had to get him distracted before the man realized what he was doing. "Sammy?" he asked, hoping that a conversation would turn the man's attention away, "is that you?"

The man nodded. "I must admit I am honored you came all the way down here to visit me. It almost makes what I'm about to do seem cruel." He sighed. "But believers must honor their savior. I must have him notice me."

"Sammy. What the hell are you talking about?"

"Our savior, Bendy," Sammy was happy to explain. "We must show him how much we adore him and he might grace us with his presence."

Henry looked at Sammy like he was crazy, and he probably was. "Honor _Bendy_? You're meaning the cartoon demon that we worked on?"

"Yes," Sammy confirmed. "But Henry, he's so much more than that." He looked around quickly as if he was worried that someone might overhear his secret. "Henry, he's alive."

"I know that, actually. He's alive and so are Alice and Boris and the ink monsters that are down here. You and Joey made them real."

"Joey didn't have anything to do with the Searcher monsters. That was all me." Sammy stood up a little straighter, feeling proud of his accomplishment. "Now, enough smalltalk. We must honor our savior."

Henry couldn't believe what he was hearing. This was so ridiculous, he stopped untying himself so he could try to get some sense into his old coworker. "Look. I don't know where your common sense went, but I think some of this ink got into your brain. Take a look at yourself, Sammy! You can dress up in that ridiculous mask and drench yourself in ink when you're alone in your room for all I care, but do something with your life! You've been in an abandoned cartoon studio for the past thirty years! Right now, you need to clean yourself off, get something to eat that isn't canned bacon soup, and give up worshipping cartoon characters! Seriously! Bendy just wants to dance and he acts like a kid and if he ever found out that somebody thought that he was a deity, he would feel seriously disturbed!"

Having finished his rant, Henry glared at Sammy and waited for him to respond. Sammy folded his arms. "Henry, as angry as I am at you insulting our lord, I still feel wrong about sacrificing you."

"You're going to _what_?" Henry blinked in shock. "You're actually going to sacrifice me to a cartoon character?" He took a deep breath. He had to find some way out of this. His life depended on it. Going back to untying himself, Henry started talking again. "Okay, Sammy. Please enlighten me as to what sacrificing me to Bendy is going to accomplish."

Sammy looked down. "As great as our lord is, he need help in his current state. Joey," he spat with contempt, "didn't want him to achieve his full potential. He wanted to remain in control. But I have to change that!" He shook his fist with determination. "I have to make him real so his dreams can come true! And the only way to do accomplish that is by making a sacrifice to the higher gods! And—"

"Henry, are you all right? You've been down there an awful long time!" Both men's heads turned in the direction that the girlish voice had come from. "Why isn't he answering?" She gasped. "Do you think he's okay?"

"I don't know, but I'm going to find out. You two, get behind me." The door to the side opened and Boris came through. He looked at Sammy and then at Henry and then he turned around and looked at his two friends looking at the scene.

"My lord!" exclaimed Sammy. He wheeled around and grabbed a knife that was waiting off to the side. Just as Henry finally undid the knot, Sammy lunged at him and slashed the knife across his arm. Henry stared at the red that was blossoming and the next moment, he was sitting on the floor, propped up against the wall. "Shhh, you're going to be okay," Sammy whispered as he pressed a cloth against the wound to soak up the blood. He took the cloth away and replaced it with a fresh one that he tied around the wound to stop the bleeding. Giving the injured man a pat on the head, Sammy turned around and held up the cloth with the blood on it. "Now my lord, hear me and claim the offering of this tender sheep's blood!"

With a sudden burst of speed, he ran forward and shoved the cloth in the horrified (though his facial expression wasn't any different than it always was) Bendy's face. The ink monster collapsed. Alice and Boris watched, too shocked to move. Bendy was melting. Ink was dripping off of him and puddling on the floor. And then…

"What did you do to me?" Bendy's face was no longer covered in ink. He looked like a larger, three-dimensional version of himself as a drawing. His gaze fell on Henry. "Oh my gosh! Are you all right?!" He rushed over and knelt down. "Does it hurt?"

Henry winced. "Yes, but I don't think it's a deep cut. I just...can't stand the sight of blood." He took a deep breath. "I'm fine. But are you okay?"

"I think I am. I mean, I can speak off the page now. But I'm not sure about…" He looked himself over. "I don't know what to say about this."

Henry sat up a little straighter and looked up at Sammy. He gave a nervous chuckle. "Gosh, I thought that you were going to actually kill me for a moment there. But, um, how is making Bendy less terrifying going to help him?"

"I only meant to make him independent of ink. I did not know that the result would be this." He looked down at the cloth again. "And why would you think that I was going to kill you?"

"You kind of knocked me out and tied me up and said that you were going to sacrifice me."

"Well, for goodness sake, I am not a murderer. I see no need in spilling more blood than is needed."

"I guess that's good to know." He sighed and moved his injured arm experimentally. "I think I'm okay to get up." He got to his feet, careful to keep his eyes on Sammy. "So, um, what are you going to do now?"

"Whatever our lord commands me to do, of course."

Bendy took a step backwards. "You mean me? Okay. Um, could you go away please and not come back?"

Sammy looked shocked. "My lord, you are…dismissing me?"

"Yeah. Dismissing you from service or whatever you call this weirdness you've imposed upon yourself. Go compose some music and give up that creepy getup and leave. Please. You scare me."

"I did not mean to displease you. I will go." He nodded quickly. "Henry," he paused, "if your arm is bothering you, I could drive you home. I'm sorry that it had to be you who got hurt, but a sacrifice was needed."

"Um, well, I guess Bendy's happier now and I'm not dead so it isn't that bad. But as much as I appreciate the offer, I'd rather not get into a car with someone who hasn't practiced driving in thirty years."

"Hasn't practiced in—" Sammy started laughing. "I drive every day! Goodness, you don't think I _live_ here in this studio, do you?" He took the blank expression as an answer. "Goodness, I have a home and a job that I have to maintain. Serving my lord is merely my favorite hobby."

Bendy stared at Sammy. "Please get a different hobby," was all he could say.

Sammy made Alice and Boris able to move off of ink just as he had done to Bendy, said an awkward goodbye to the coworker he hadn't seen in thirty years, and then Henry was alone with the three toons. "Well, I guess we can live at the studio in peace now without Joey or Sammy or anyone. With a little cleaning, it should feel like home," said Boris. "Are you sure you're okay?"

"I'm pretty sure. I better get home and clean the cut, though." He sighed. "Still, it's good to know that everything's okay now." He took the paper that they used to live on out of his pocket and set it on the nearest desk. "You've got the place all to yourselves, you're safe, and I'll come and visit you in case you get lonely. This is nice."

"Yeah," Alice agreed. Bendy nodded as well. It had turned out nice, after all.

 **I don't really know why I wrote this story. This is the end.**


End file.
